Product Description:

Winner of the Audience Award for Best Dramatic Picture at Sundance, this period romance follows the saga of a young Japanese girl who becomes a "picture bride" for a Hawaiian sugarcane worker following her parents' deaths. Arriving in Hawaii to discover her fiance has deceived her with an old photo, she nonetheless fulfills her duty, eventually admitting her own deception and learning to accept her life. Winner of the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Description by Buena Vista Home Entertainment:

Picture Bride

Highly acclaimed by critics everywhere, this memorable story of passionate love is set amid the breathtaking scenery of a tropical paradise. With only a picture in hand, a beautiful young woman leaves behind all she knows for the far-off islands of Hawaii -- and an arranged marriage with a man she has never met. Though she initially regrets her decision, in time her new life on an island sugar plantation is filled with unexpected discovery and joy. Featuring Youki Kudoh (MYSTERY TRAIN) and Tamlyn Tomita (THE JOY LUCK CLUB), PICTURE BRIDE was the winner of the Audience Award for Best Dramatic Film at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival.

Plot Synopsis:

After 16-year-old Riyo travels all the way from Japan to a Hawaiian sugarcane plantation for an arranged marriage, she is shocked to discover that Matsuji, her husband-to-be, is 43 years old. With not a penny to her name, Riyo has no choice but to wed Matsuji, but she refuses to sleep with him and dedicates herself to working hard in the fields so she can earn enough to return to Japan. Meanwhile, Matsuji clumsily but tenderly attempts to win Riyo's affections. Just as Riyo begins to respond to her husband's flirtations, bigger, less personal problems arise. The long-standing racial and ethnic tensions between the white landowners and the Asian plantation workers break out into open warfare, causing poverty, despair and death.